


Small Miracles

by AelinElentiya



Series: Twilight Stories [2]
Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Adoption, Children, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 14:29:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5420597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AelinElentiya/pseuds/AelinElentiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic is a prequel to Afterglow, and it is necessary to read this before starting with Afterglow. </p><p>Rosalie gets the happy ending she only dreamed of, even if the circumstances weren’t ideal. And Esme’s motherly instincts lead to something she never imagined would happen for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1. Sorrow and Joy

1\. Sorrow and Joy 

Rosalie Hale 

 

I COULD HEAR EMMETT’S LAUGHTER BEHIND ME AS WE RAN THROUGH the forest. It was early spring, which meant it was Emmett’s favourite hunting season. It was about mid-afternoon on a windy Saturday, and it seemed like we were the only people in the woods. Humans were smart enough to stay away at this time of the year when the bears were active. At least, they should’ve been.  
We had eaten several deer and foxes that morning, but Emmett was still insisting on finding a bear. I told him that if we didn’t find one in the next two hours, we’d have to come back tomorrow. He was determined to find one now.  
We had just reached a small stream when the scent of blood hit my nostrils, and I skidded to a halt. Emmett, not realizing that I had stopped, crashed into me, and laughed as we both tumbled to the ground. I pushed him off, and sniffed the air, my body tense.  
“What is it?” Emmett asked worriedly, his smile vanishing.  
I sniffed again. There was no mistaking the smell of human blood, and it was close enough that if I strained, I could make out a heartbeat. “Someone’s out here,” I said. “South-East. There’s blood, and it’s fresh.”  
He sniffed, too, and frowned. “Someone hunting, maybe,” he suggested. “Or hiking. Not a very good idea at this time of year, with the bears and all, but you never know. It’s probably a tourist.”  
I nodded. The wind was faint now, and I strained to listen for the heartbeat. It was faint, and getting weaker. But as I listened, I could hear something out of place in the middle of the woods. No human would’ve heard it, but it was a sound I would know anywhere, from any distance.  
The sound of a baby crying.  
Emmett heard it, too, and he had to have known what I would do, but he was a second too late. I was already running. “Rose, no!” He yelled, but he made no attempt to come after me. He knew it was pointless to try and stop me.  
I had never been the fastest runner. Even for a vampire, I was slow. But I was pretty sure that at that moment I could’ve beat Edward—even Bella—in a race. My body was reacting purely on instinct, and I didn’t need to pay attention to where I was going because my nose and ears, were leading the way. Nothing mattered now, nothing except finding the child that needed my help.  
I came to a stop at one of the many trails. A picnic blanket lay crumbled on the ground next, next to a cooler that had been tipped over. There were two backpacks and empty water bottles, apple cores, and zip-lock baggies. We were only a few miles into the woods, close enough to a car. Emmett was right about someone hiking, but there had been more than one person. They must have stopped to have lunch when whatever happened… happened.  
I noticed the blood most of all. The blanket was nearly soaked crimson, and blood had been splashed on the side of the cooler. From there, it made a trail, leading to a small tree that had a few feet away. A body was slumped against its trunk in a sickening position that wasn’t at all natural. I could see a blood-tinged orange shoestring.  
I walked over to it, feeling sick to my stomach. Already I could tell the body was definitely mangled, but that was nothing compared to what I saw next.  
There were long claw marks across his face, and his jacket was soaked through with blood, forming a pool around him. It looked like he had been thrown at the tree, and I could tell several of his bones had been broken on impact. He was definitely male, and definitely dead.  
Emmett came up behind me, and I turned. There was a question in his eyes. “It was a bear attack,” I confirmed. “Not too long ago. Less than ten minutes at least. We just missed it.”  
He nodded, and looked at the body. I could see the rage in his eyes. I knew what he was thinking. We could’ve prevented this from happening, if only we’d been a little faster. Another human wouldn’t have died, and instead, the bear would be dead. And deep in the back of his mind, he was thinking that it could’ve been him in a very similar position, if I hadn’t come along and saved him all those years ago.  
“Well, with any luck we’ll catch it on the way home,” he said slowly. “Did you find the child?”  
I shook my head, but suddenly noticed a clump of bushes I hadn’t seen before. I don’t know how I missed it, considering there was yet another trail of blood leading towards it, almost as if someone had dragged themselves over. I detected three heartbeats, one of which was the faint one I had heard earlier. I could hear the effort it was making in order to stay alive. Emmett heard the heartbeats, too, and he started towards the bushes, but I shook my head.  
“I’ll go first,” I said quietly. “In case they’re startled. Then you follow me.”  
He hesitated, but didn’t stop me. I walked soundlessly over to the bushes, and when I stepped around them, the small boy sitting there gave a terrified squeak. He looked unharmed, but there were tears streaming down his cheeks and blood on his arm. His eyes were wide with fear, and he was sitting next to a woman. There was a baby lying on a blanket next to him. She looked only months old, with dark curly hair and blue eyes. She was sucking on a pacifier, her face red and blotch. It was clear that she had been the source of the crying.  
“H-help.” He whispered. “Momma. Momma hurt.”  
I swallowed, and knelt down in front of him. “It’s okay,” I told him. “Are you hurt?”  
The boy shook his head. “N-no. N-no, Momma,” he said, hiccupping. “Momma hurt. Momma hurt.”  
It took me a moment to realize what he meant, and then I looked at the woman, who was so still I had assumed she was dead. I assessed her. She was not dead, but after a quick assessment, it was obvious she was very badly hurt. She was barely clinging to life, and probably only had minutes left. “Please,” she whispered, looking up at me as I knelt over her.  
There was a determination in her eyes that reminded me of Bella, when she had been pregnant with Renesmee. The determination to live. I had not contemplating changing a human, and while I hadn’t been strong enough for Emmett, I was stronger now. But I still didn’t trust myself. “Please… take… my babies,” she murmured. “I’m all… they have.”  
I understood immediately what she meant. Her children would be orphans when she died. Emmett joined me then, and I noticed that he had blood on his hands. The little boy looked even more terrified at the sight of him.  
“Emmett, take them back to the house, and get Carlisle. Quickly,” I said.  
He nodded, and swooped the boy into his arms. I handed him the baby, and he held them both easily in his arms. “No!” The boy protested, fresh tears falling. He struggled to get free, but his effort was pointless. “No! Down. Momma! Help Momma!”  
“It’s okay,” his mother said. Her voice was so weak it was barely a whisper. I almost wondered if he had heard her at all, but he stopped struggling almost immediately. Emmett looked at me, hesitating for a second, and then he left, taking off into the forest at breakneck speed. I turned back to the mother, pressing the blanket against her leg in attempt to stop the bleeding. “What happened to you?” I asked her quietly. “Try not to use too many words, if you can.”  
The woman looked determined to hang on as long as possible. “Bear,” she murmured, confirming what I had guessed.  
“A bear attacked you? And your husband?” I asked.  
She nodded weakly. I could hear her heart beating, and each heartbeat was slower than the last. “Please… Xander… Emmy. You… take them… They… yours now,” she whispered, and she reached for my hand, gripping it with what little strength she had left. I saw the plea in her eyes, and my heart broke for her. “I will. I will, I promise,” I said. “I will take care of them.”  
The woman smiled, and she closed her eyes, a tear sliding down her cheek. She dropped my hand. Her heartbeats slowed and then, with a last breath, they came to a halting stop. I bowed my head. My heart was breaking, and I cried without tears until I heard footsteps behind me.  
Carlisle and Edward came towards me. Carlisle had his medical box with him. “What happened?” He asked.  
“The couple were attacked by a bear,” I said. “I think her husband distracted it, so she could take the children, but she must have gone back out after she hid them and she was attacked, too. She crawled over here. Emmett and I smelled the blood. But we were too late. We should’ve been faster. I couldn’t… I should’ve changed her, or at least tried. I didn’t save her. I could have. She might’ve lived.”  
“It wasn’t your fault,” Carlisle said softly. “Do you think she would’ve accepted immortality? Perhaps she would not have wanted to live without her husband.”  
“But her children,” I said. I couldn’t help it. I felt as if I had failed, that it was my fault that her children were now orphans.  
“She told you to take them,” Edward said, reading my mind. “She must have known they would be safe with you. You haven’t failed, and it wasn’t your fault.”  
“She did?” Carlisle asked, surprised. “Well, then you must keep your promise. Though it is risky, raising human children.”  
“I will not break my promise,” I said stubbornly. “I promised that woman I would take care of them, and that’s what I’ll do. Screw the Volturi and their stupid laws.”  
Edward snickered. “I wasn’t suggesting you do otherwise,” Carlisle said, smiling a little. “Did you get their names? The children’s, I mean?”  
I nodded. “The boy is Xander. She called the girl Emmy, but I’m thinking it’s probably a nickname,” I said.  
“Hopefully we’ll find some identification in their bags,” Carlisle said. “We’ll take the bodies back to the house.”  
“I’ll do some searching. They probably had a car,” I said. “I’ll be home as soon as I can.”  
He nodded, and then he and Edward took the bodies and left. After I collected their belongings, I followed the human scent to a jeep at the end of the trail. There wasn’t a wallet to be found in their backpacks, so I was hoping they had kept their identification in the car.  
Luckily, they had. Their mother had their birth certificates and health cards all in the babies’ diaper bags, which were in the back seat. According to these, Xander was two, and Sophie, the baby girl, had just turned six months. Their parents were Joshua and Sofia Carter. Sofia’s purse was in the front seat, and I found her cell phone and a small black notebook that was filled with information. She seemed to be one of those parents who liked to record everything. The journal began when she was still pregnant with Sophie, and the last entry was this morning. According to her notebook, they were on their way to Vancouver for vacation, but Xander had a stomachache after breakfast, and they’d decided to take a break from driving.  
It was all I could find, but it was good enough. I guessed that they had heard about the trails in town, and decided to check them out and have a picnic. Obviously they hadn’t heard about the bears.  
When I was done, I found the car keys in one of their backpacks, and drove back to the house. I parked it in the garage, and went inside. In the living room, I found Esme sitting in a chair with Sophie on her lap, bouncing her on her knee. When she saw me, she held her arms out, and I smiled, picking her up. She buried her face in my shoulder, cooing softly.  
“Looks like someone likes you already,” Esme laughed, as I sat on the couch across from her. “Did you find out her name?”  
“Sophie,” I said. “Her mother had both birth certificates and health cards in the car. Her full name, according to said birth certificate, is Sophie Mackenzie Carter. She just turned months a few weeks ago.”  
“Good thing we kept all of Nessie’s baby stuff, then,” Alice said, entering the room with a bottle in hand. “At least she’ll stay the same size long enough to wear things more than once.”  
She handed me the bottle, and I turned Emma, and gave her the bottle. She sucked greedily. I had a feeling she was probably starving, and I wondered how long it had been since she’d been fed.  
Just then, Xander came skipping into the room, Emmett following closely behind him. Xander was wearing a T-shirt that was so big on him it was a dress, though I could see it was being held back by pins. There was chocolate icing all over his face, including his nose. He bounced over when he spotted me, grinning. “Rosie!” He exclaimed happily. “Em says me and Emmy gonna stay wif you. Can we stay wif you, Rosie?”  
I smiled at him. “Of course you can,” I said.  
“Yay!” He said, and then he frowned. “Is Momma and Daddy gonna come pick us up soon, Rosie?”  
The smile fell off my face immediately, and I shook my head. “No, sweetheart,” I told him quietly. “Momma and Daddy are gonna live with the angels now. Momma said that you and Emmy have to stay here with me.”  
He looked confused. “Momma and Daddy went away?” He asked. “To live with Grammy and Grandpa?”  
I nodded. “Yes,” I said.  
For a minute, he was quiet, and I wondered if he would cry. But instead, he took a deep breath, and nodded. “Rosie, is I got two Mommas and Daddies now?” He asked.  
I didn’t know how to answer. The question caught me by surprise. But thankfully, Emmett saved me from answering. “You don’t have to call us that, if you don’t want to,” he said. “You can call us Uncle Em and Aunt Rosie, if you want.”  
Xander nodded. “Okay,” he said.  
There was a long moment of silence, which was only broken when Sophie suddenly spit out her bottle and burped, rather loudly for a baby, I thought. Emmett burst into laughter. Esme and I just stared at her, amazed. Emmett reached for her, his eyes asking for permission, and I handed her over. He took her in his arms, and she gazed up at him, her eyes wide. “You and I are going to have lots of fun together,” he told her.  
I smiled, and turned to Xander. “Are you hungry?” I asked, and he nodded. “Let’s go get you cleaned up, and in some proper clothes, and then we’ll get you something to eat. Okay?”  
“Kay,” he said. I took his hand, and we headed down the hall into the bathroom. 

~*~

Alice brought the bags in from the car while I started Xander’s bath. We let him pick the shampoo and body wash, opening the different bottles and letting him smell it. His expressions were hilarious, and by the time he finally decided on one, Emmett was laughing so hard he had to give me Emma so he didn’t drop her.  
We washed his hair first, using a cup to rinse the soap out, and Emmett helped him cover his eyes. Emma sat contentedly in my lap while Emmett did the rest of the bath, but occasionally, she would giggle, as if she found something funny, and I would simply look at her for a moment, and then smile.  
When Xander was finished, he sat in the tub for a few minutes, making bubble-moustaches with Emmett, who was having just as much fun—if not more—than he was, while I quickly bathed Sophie. I had never heard a baby scream so loudly. The second she touched the water, she screamed like a banshee.  
“Soph no like wet,” Xander said, but he started singing Itsy Bitsy Spider to her, and she stopped at once.  
I went as fast as I could, assuring her that it was okay. She had stopped screaming, occupied by Xander’s song. When I took her out of the tub, she screamed even louder than before. Xander rubbed her wrist and she held his fingers while I quickly changed her into a pair of pink pyjamas. By the time I was done, Emmett had finished putting Xander into his own pyjamas.  
“How did you know to do that?” I asked him as I carried the now-sleepy Sophie into the kitchen.  
“Momma does it,” Xander said simply. “It keeps her quiet. Sometimes Sophie doesn’t like bedtime, so Momma sings to her until she goes night-night.”  
“Thank you,” I told him.  
In the kitchen, Esme sat with Bella and Renesmee at the table. Renesmee was already eating, and she smiled and waved at Xander when we walked in. Xander gave me a questioning look. “That’s Nessie,” I explained. “It’s okay. You can sit with her.”  
He did, and I almost laughed when I saw that Esme had made them chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs and French fries. Sophia was hungry again, but she couldn’t possibly want another bottle. I had seen some baby pablum in her diaper bag, though, so I mixed some of that and fed it to her. She seemed to enjoy it, even though it looked absolutely disgusting. She ended up eating almost the whole bowl anyway.  
“Piggy,” Emmett laughed, taking the bowl away.  
Xander was done eating, too. He yawned, and pushed his plate away. “Story time?” He asked me hopefully.  
“Um…” I hadn’t seen any books in either of their bags, but I was pretty sure we had some kid’s books upstairs, for Renesmee—though she didn’t seem to like them very much. “Sure.”  
We got up, and headed upstairs. Emmett picked Xander up. He was probably exhausted. It was almost eight, later than I’d realized. He’d had a long day. Sophie was starting to fall asleep in my arms, too. I found a couple of books in Edward’s old room where Nessie slept when it was too late to go back to the cottage, and we headed into mine and Emmett’s room. Nessie’s crib had been set up in our bedroom, but I doubted we’d be using it tonight. Xander crawled into the bed, with Emmett and I on either side of him, and I pulled the blanket over us.  
“Can I listen, too, Aunt Rosie?” Nessie asked from the doorway.  
I nodded, and she sat next to me. Xander was leaning against Emmett, and Sophie lie on my chest, already fast asleep.  
“Once upon a time…” I began.

~*~ 

 

After Nessie left and Xander fell asleep, Emmett and I lie in bed for a long time. I didn’t bother putting Sophie in the crib. It felt nice to hold her. It felt right.  
“I’d make a joke about not getting sleep after this, but it wouldn’t apply to us, since we don’t sleep anyway,” he said. “I’m glad we went hunting today.”  
“Me, too,” I said quietly. “I feel like I shouldn’t be happy, because the only reason we have these babies is because their parents are dead, but I am. Is that wrong?”  
“You’re allowed to be happy,” he said. “We’ll all mourn, of course, but something good came out of this. Everything happens for a reason, even the bad things.”  
I smiled a little. “I’m finally exactly where I want to be, even if the situation’s a little different than what I imagined,” I said.  
“You can’t have everything you want in life,” he said. “Maybe one day, you’ll be surrounded by grandchildren after all. You’ll be old, but not grey. On second thought—I think I might kill anyone who tries to further the population with my daughter, so maybe not.”  
I laughed. “I already feel sorry for whoever that may be,” I said honestly.  
Emmett grinned at me, and we fell silent again, listening to the sound of Xander and Sophie’s quiet breathing. I told myself then that I would never break the promise I’d made to their mother, not even when I had taken my last breath.  
I kissed Xander’s forehead, smiling, and Emmett reached over and took my hand. I leaned against him, and we sat together in a peaceful silence, Xander sleeping soundly in between us, Sophie on my chest, the soft rise-and-fall of her chest against mine as wonderful as I had ever imagined it would be.  
And so began our first night as parents.


	2. 2. Mothers Love

2\. Mother’s Love 

Four months later  
Esme 

 

I STOOD ON THE YACHT, LOOKING OUT AT THE SMALL ISLANDS, WHICH APPEARED, even to me, like tiny spots in the distance. Isle Esme seemed so close, but yet still so far away.  
Laughter echoed behind me, and I smiled. Nessie was chasing Jacob up and down the deck, curls bobbing as she ran, laughing gleefully.   
“Jacob,” Bella said in a warning voice, “if you let Nessie fall off this boat, I will kill you.”  
I had to force back a laugh. The night before we left home, Bella had told me that she still worried that something would happen to Nessie. I had done my best to assure her that nothing would ever happen to her, not while we were around, but she was still very protective. “Relax, Bells,” Jacob said, sounding like he, too, was trying not to laugh. “She’s fine. Right, Nessie?”  
Nessie nodded. “Besides, even if I did fall off, Jake would go in after me. Right, Jake?”  
I smiled. Sometimes it was hard to believe she wasn’t even a year old yet. She looked four, but even then, she sounded much more mature than any other four year old. She was by far smarter than her two-year-old cousin, that was for sure.   
“Of course,” Jacob said, grinning at her.  
Bella gave him a look, shrugged, and turned back to Edward, who was standing next to her and watching them with amusement. Across the deck, Xander was playing with toy cars with Emmett, and Rose was sitting on the deck with them, a sleeping Sophie in her arms. Alice and Jasper had disappeared belowdeck somewhere, and Carlisle was standing at the front of the boat. Isle Esme, the precious gift I’d been given years and years ago, was not far away now. The islands were bigger, no longer tiny spots in the distance. I guessed we would be there in an hour or so.  
It had been a while since we’d been here. Six years had passed in what seemed like the blink of an eye, although so much had changed. Our family was bigger now, stronger than before. Last time I was here, I had been fretting about Edward, wondering if he would ever find a mate. I’d no idea then that he would find Bella, or that they would have Nessie. I’d had no idea that Rose and Emmett would have Xander and Sophie. Six years ago, I could never have imagined how happy we would be.  
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”   
I turned to see Carlisle, who had come to stand next to me. He was looking out at the islands with a smile. “It has,” I agreed. “And yet, it feels like hardly any time has passed.”  
“Six years is nothing when you’re immortal,” he agreed, and sighed. “I missed it here. It’s good to be back; we’ve all needed a vacation.”  
“You especially,” I said.  
He’d been working himself too hard these last weeks. He talked endless hours with Nahuel, the other half-human, half-vampire child, trying to find out everything he could so that we had an idea of what Nessie’s future would look like. He worried, as we all did, that we would be caught off guard, and wanted to be prepared as much as we could. Though we still couldn’t be certain what Nessie’s future looked like, we needed all the information we could get.  
“I suppose I have been working too much lately,” he admitted, reluctantly. “I promise to make it up to you.”  
I grinned. “Good,” I said. “I was starting to worry that you had forgotten all about me.”  
He laughed. “Forget you? Never,” he said. He pulled me close. We stood there for a moment in silence, and then Edward was at our side.  
“Carlisle,” he said. There was a pained expression on his face. “We’re about five hundred miles to the island. And I can hear human thoughts only a few minutes away from us.”  
We both scanned the ocean, and I could make out the small boat in the distance, barely visible. It was much smaller than our yacht. Something was wrong with it, though. It looked as if... “Is it sinking?” I asked, horrified.  
“Yes,” Edward sounded pained. “They hit rocks near one of the other islands. I can barely make out the thoughts. The wife is trapped in the propellers, and her husband tried to get her but he wasn’t wearing a lifejacket. He drowned. There are children in one of the lower cabins. I can hear three voices... a boy, and two females. The girls are sending out strong vibes. It’s like they’re shouting in my head.”  
“Children?” I choked out.   
Edward nodded, and opened his mouth to say something, but I never heard it. I jumped over the side of the yacht before anyone could even blink. I heard someone—Renesmee, maybe—scream, and Carlisle calling me, but I ignored them. I was already swimming, as fast as I could, towards the sinking boat.   
I swam as fast as I could. My only thoughts were of the children. I needed to get to them. I didn’t care if there were two or two hundred, I had to save them. I would not allow children to drown to death.   
I reached the boat in less than five minutes. It was sinking fast, nearly half under the water by the time I reached it.   
No, no, no. It was lucky that I didn’t need to breathe, because I would’ve started hyperventilating.  
Edward had said that the woman, their mother, was caught in the propellers. I could smell the blood and guessed I was closer to her than I was to the children. As much as I wanted to go straight to the children, I went to the woman first.   
The sight that greeted me when I reached the propellers was the worst thing I had ever seen in all my years. The woman was caught between them, and she was bleeding badly. She wasn’t moving, and at first I thought she was dead. But her chest was rising and falling, very slowly, and I realized that she was being still as she could on purpose. That was smart, I thought. If she struggled, she would have lost more blood trying to move.   
She saw me coming towards her, and her eyes widened. When she realized I was going to attempt to pull her free, she pointed wildly left, towards the cabin, shaking her head. In her eyes, I could see the plea, and I knew what she wanted me to do. A mother’s first instinct is her children, and I didn’t need to be a mind reader like Edward to know what she was saying. She wanted me to get her children first, even if it meant she would die.  
But I didn’t. I somehow managed to pull her out of the propellers, noticing that she was missing both her legs. There was a dark shape above the water, and I saw that Carlisle had brought the yacht out to me. He carefully pulled the woman onto the deck, and I heard Edward begin to translate what she was thinking. I didn’t stop to listen, though. I was already heading to the cabin.   
As I got closer, I began to hear them. Their heartbeats were very weak, and I wondered if they were already drowning. The boat was almost completely under water now. It was a possibility that I would be too late.   
Something swam past me, and all I saw was the streak of black hair. Emmett had come to help me.   
I reached the cabin at last, and Emmett broke the door down with his hands, and we went inside. It was pitch black under the water, but I could see them. There were three of them, but I could only see two. The oldest was a boy, probably nine, and he was standing on top of a piece of furniture, struggling to keep his head above water. He was holding a baby above his head, as high as his small arms would reach. To keep her from drowning.   
“Help!” The boy gasped when he saw us. He nodded to the corner, where the top of what I thought was a bunk bed was half-visible, almost completely submerged in the water. Emmett grabbed the boy, and I noticed that Alice had joined us, too. She took the baby, holding her close to her chest. They were safe. But they had forgotten that there was a third.   
I could see something bobbing in the water, and I didn’t think. In half a second, I was under, swimming towards the child. It was even darker in the water, but I didn’t need light to see. Despite the blackness, I could still see her. She was no older than four, and her hands were gripping the headboard as hard as she could. I assumed she had been standing on it, but it had gone under. She had her eyes closed, but she opened them when I swooped her up into my arms, and she gave a tiny, weak smile.  
I swam as fast as I could. She wrapped her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck, to keep from slipping, and buried her face in my shoulder. She had a tight grip, for such a young child.   
When we broke the surface, she gasped for air, and Carlisle pulled us both onto the boat. He wrapped her tightly in a towel, and Edward took her to her brother. He was sitting in Jacob’s lap, using his heat to keep warm.  
“I can’t believe you did that,” Carlisle said, pulling me into his arms. “Although I should have expected it.”  
“I had to save them,” I said. “I had to try, at least.”  
He kissed my forehead. “I know,” he murmured.   
Someone tapped my shoulder, and I pulled away to see Edward standing there. “Someone would like to thank you,” he said.  
I hadn’t realized that the mother was still alive, but I saw her now. She was lying on one of the couches near her children, and someone had covered her with blankets—to keep them from seeing her legs, I thought. Her lips were blue and she was white as a ghost. How she had managed to hold on this long amazed me. She must have been in an incredible amount of pain, but looking at her, I couldn’t even tell.  
“Is she going to be alright?” I asked my husband.  
He shook his head, sadly. “She’s lost a lot of blood,” he said softly. “Her left leg was torn off when she got caught in the propeller, and the other one is half-missing. I’ve told her what we are, and offered to make her immortal, but...”  
“She doesn’t want to,” I finished. “Because her husband’s gone. And she doesn’t want to live forever without him.”  
He nodded. “She told Edward that she knows her children are going to be safe,” he said. “And that she wants us to take them.”  
“She saw something in your eyes when she looked at you,” Edward told me. “She said she knew you were a mother and that you would take care of her children. She knows that they’ll be loved for the rest of their lives.”  
“Of course they will be,” I said.   
Carlisle smiled a little. “She says her name is Kayla,” he said. “She’s been able to communicate with her thoughts so far, after we explained what Edward could do.”  
I nodded, and walked over to her. It was a miracle, really, that she’d managed to hold on this long, with the amount of blood she was losing. “Hello,” I said, sitting down next to her. “My name is Esme.”  
She gave the smallest of smiles, and her hand reached out. I took it, and her fingers gripped mine. “Please, take care of my babies,” she whispered.  
“I will. I promise,” I said. “Your children will be safe.”  
She closed her eyes, and for a moment, I thought she was gone, but she opened them again. “My babies,” she whispered. “Nikita. Ally. Daniel.”  
I knew what she wanted immediately, and I heard Edward tell the children, in a low voice, to go see their mother. “They’re coming,” I told her.  
Rosalie carried the baby, and she carefully handed her to Kayla. Kayla pressed her lips against her cheek, and breathed in, as if she was inhaling her daughter’s scent for the last time. “Nikita,” she whispered.   
“Mom?” The boy, Daniel, asked. His lower lip quivered, as if he was going to cry. “Mommy, are you going to be okay now?”  
She barely managed to nod. “I’ll be okay, baby,” she whispered. “I have to go away now. Okay?” Her voice was barely audible. I could see the fear on Daniel’s face.   
“By why?” He cried. “Where are you going? Can’t I come?”   
I let go of her hand, and Daniel took it instead. He was crying now, the tears dripping down his cheeks. “I’m going to see angels now, baby,” she told him. “But you and your sisters will be okay, because Mama Esme is going to take care of you now.” I was surprised she referred to me as “Mama”, but I didn’t say anything.  
“But you said angels are in Heaven. Up in the sky.” It wasn’t Daniel who spoke now, but the four-year-old. Her voice was so small, and she looked like she was trying hard not to cry. “I don’t want you to live in the sky, Mummy.”   
“Sometimes Mommy’s and Daddy’s have to go, sweetie,” Kayla said. “But when you’re big and tall and old you’ll see me again. But Mommy has to go now. Mama Esme will take care of you now. She’s your fairy godmother. Remember what I told you about them?”   
The little girl nodded. “They keep us safe and love us always,” she said.   
I admired the strength of this woman. I didn’t know how she was able to keep breathing long enough to assure her children that they would be okay. She didn’t even look like she was in pain, though I knew she probably was. Perhaps God was keeping her alive until the right moment. “And Mama Esme will keep you safe and love you always,” she whispered. “Come here now. Give Mummy a hug.”  
I watched as Daniel, wiping his tears away, leaned down to lie his head on his mother’s shoulder. Ally lay against the blanket where the baby was wrapped in, and Kayla reached up to touch her face. “I love you,” she whispered, her hand falling to her side.  
And then, she took a deep, shuddering breath, and closed her eyes. Her face was peaceful, and I could hear her heartbeats slow down until they stopped completely. She was really gone. I closed my eyes.   
Ally looked up, and she turned to face me, her face streaked with tears and her brown eyes shimmering. “Mummy’s with the angels now?” She asked, so quietly no one else would’ve been able to hear. The question was meant for me alone.   
I nodded. “Yes, Mummy’s with the angels now,” I said. “But you’ll be okay, Ally. I promise.”  
She looked at her mother for a long moment, and then took a deep breath, as if she was processing that her mother was gone. “Okay,” she said. She stood up, and kissed her mother’s cheek, and then moved away.   
Gently, I lifted the baby from Kayla’s arms. Daniel, whose back was moving up and down from his sobs, sat up and looked at me. “Can we bury her on your island?” He asked. “Mom would like that. She’d want to be somewhere warm.”  
I gave a small smile. “I think that’s a good idea,” I said.   
He took a deep breath, squeezed his mother’s hand one last time before letting go, and then stood up. He walked over to Carlisle, who put his arm around him.   
Ally hovered by me for a minute, and then went to sit with Renesmee, who smiled at her and began teaching her the game she was playing with Jacob. I sat holding Nikita, who fast asleep, oblivious to what had just happened.   
I loved the way she felt in my arms, so perfect and small, and mine. I held Emmaleah often enough—on the rare occasions when her parents actually let go of her—and I had certainly had my fair share of holding Renesmee when she’d been small enough, but this seemed different. She was mine. While she wasn’t the first child I had raised—although I supposed that Edward, Rosalie, Emmett, Alice and Jasper had all been practically adults when we’d adopted them—, she would be my first baby.   
Nikita woke and began to fuss, so I stood at the railing and began humming to her. She stopped crying, and instead started sucking on her fist.   
“Daniel says we’ll be burying Kayla on Isle Esme.” I looked up to see Carlisle standing next to me, and nodded.   
“He said she thought she would like that,” I said. “Being somewhere warm.”   
His eyes were sad. “We’ll have a small funeral on the beach tonight, then. They need some kind of closure. Daniel, especially. He’s only six.”  
“So young, and yet they have lost so much already,” I said. “It isn’t fair, is it? I almost feel wrong taking any joy in holding this baby, in knowing that she is mine. As much as I wanted to have a baby of my own, I hate the way we got her.”  
“There is no joy without sadness,” Carlisle said. “They seem to go hand in hand for us, don’t they? Renesmee is born but the Volturi almost attacked us all. Rosalie finally gets her children, but only because their parents were killed by a bear. And now, this.”  
“But you can’t have a rainbow without a little rain,” I said, quoting something I had read a while ago. I put my hand on his arm. “We’ll make it through. We always do.”  
He nodded. “Of course we will,” he said. “So, what will the story be, then? When we get home, people are bound to ask questions.”  
“We’ll say they were in one of the orphanages, and we adopted them,” I said. “It’s the most believable. The children don’t look like they came from here, but we can say that their mother was a tourist who fell in love with their father or something like that. Jasper will have to get in touch with his contact, and have new passports and birth certificates shipped over to us. We’ll probably have to stay in Rio for a few months, though.”  
“That’s alright,” he said. “We love it here, after all. I’m sure they will, too. Besides, we should let them get used to us before we drag them to a new place.”  
“I don’t want them to be too overwhelmed,” I agreed. “By the way, did Edward find out if Ally is a short form or something, or is it just Ally?”  
He frowned. “I think he said Kayla called her Alliyah,” he said.   
“Alliyah, Daniel, and Nikita Cullen,” I said, smiling. “I like it.”  
He smiled. “Ally seems to have taken quite a liking to Nessie already,” he said. “And Edward says that Daniel has a brilliant mind for someone so young. He tried to help, you know. When he saw his mother, he tried to help fix her legs. He made us put blankets on her right away, to soak up the blood, he said.”  
“One or both of his parents might have been a doctor or something like that. Maybe he picked things up,” I suggested, and looked over at Daniel, who was talking to Jasper. I could pick up pieces of their conversation, and I realized he was asking him about vampires. He must have heard what his mother had been offered, and wanted to know more about it. Jasper was being vert gentle to explain it, leaving out the parts that might scare him. Daniel was very interested when Jasper mentioned that he, Edward, Bella, and Alice had gifts, and wanted to know more about them. I tuned out when he began to explain. Some part of me felt guilty that now three more human children would have to bear our secret, and that knowing it might put them in danger. I wondered what questions we would receive later, when he was able understand the answers. Part of me even dreaded it. How could we explain immortality to a child, without making him run away screaming?  
“He’ll be fine,” Carlisle said, sensing my thoughts. “He might take a while to accept us, but eventually he’ll be fine.”  
“I know that,” I said. “I was just worrying, as usual.”  
He smiled. “Stop worrying,” he said. “We’re all going to be fine. You’ll see.”  
He wrapped an arm around my waist, and I leaned my head against his shoulder. In my arms, Nikita was cooing softly. I could hear giggles from Nessie and Ally. Emmaleah was snoring in Rosalie’s arms, and Emmett had Xander laughing. I almost forgot, listening to their joy, about the tragedy that had taken place today.   
As we sailed up to Isle Esme, though, basked in the orange-red glow of the sunset, I let myself enjoy a brief moment of peace.


End file.
